By a public sector worker in Liverpool
The far right has been emboldened over recent weeks to engage in some of the most overt terror seen in years. Violence has been directed at minority communities, with protests having erupted at mosques, asylum centres and hotels housing asylum seekers. Clashes with the authorities have been distinguished by familiar nationalist symbols, but alongside these are new demands. Rioters have claimed to be about ‘protecting the children’ and ‘prioritising the British people’ by ‘stopping the boats’.
Rather than blaming the enemy arriving in a limousine, the far right prefers to place the blame for the decline of society on the migrant, the perceived ‘leecher’ on public services, the ‘dangerous minority’. Why has this reactionary force in British society reached such conclusions and how are they misled by the capitalist class?
Over fourteen years of Tory rule, public services in the UK underwent a brutal raft of cuts which saw essential access to healthcare become more difficult, school places scarcer and local authority services slimmer, if not axed entirely. The burden of these measures fell hardest on many of the towns and cities which were plagued recently by riots. Liverpool City Council implemented a 64% cut in its budget over a decade, Manchester City Council made £443m in cuts since 2010 and Birmingham Council declared bankruptcy in 2023, owing £2.9bn to lenders.
From the coalition government to Sunak’s downfall, homelessness and poverty rose while life expectancy and annual income dropped. In the same period that saw the UK rich list record 165 resident billionaires, more working people are struggling to survive than ever before, with an estimated 14.4 million on the breadline.
In times of hardship, the capitalist class and their governments will strive to divide the working class by misplacing the blame. It is simply easier to cultivate the “hostile environment” (Theresa May 2014) and to accuse the migrant population of looking to “cannibalise UK compassion” (Suella Braverman 2023), than to foot the bill and acknowledge the systemic failing of an unjust system. All signs point to Starmer continuing on this trajectory, since Labour represents the same system.
The truth is that the school place for your child is harder to secure due to over 150 schools having closed since 2010, rather than being the fault of the desperate unaccompanied migrant children reaching UK shores. You are waiting for a council house in your area not because they are swept away by asylum seeker, but because since 1980 over 300,000 have been sold off in London alone.
Your community infrastructure is collapsing not because of refugees, but because the super rich are shielded by those in power from contributing what they owe, with the likes of Amazon paying no corporation tax in 2023 under Sunak’s super-deduction scheme.
This is why we struggle for a socialist society which will address the true cause of social inequality in the UK and require those actually responsible to pay the long outstanding bill, rather than allowing our class to be weakened by racism and division.
